


Desperado

by youcanTry



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Angsty Tim Drake, Based off Jason trying to kill Tim multiple times, Jack and Janet's A+ Parenting, Lots of it, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Tim Drake-centric, Tim's not ok, Very badly written action scene, suicidal implications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 04:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19055152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcanTry/pseuds/youcanTry
Summary: What he’s doing now could be called lots of things. Crazy. Risky. Desperate.A smirk graces his bloodied features. “Your move.”





	Desperado

**Author's Note:**

> The callout of the century: Angsty Tim fics that are heavily reflecting on his childhood are apparently the only thing I can consistently write.  
> Hope you all like it (Disclaimer; some implications of suicidal thoughts near the end, also included in the tags)  
> Enjoy!

“At least you had parents,” Jason sneered, darting in with a wicked little knife dancing across his fingertips.

 

_[Tim remembers the way his mother’s cold hand curled into his shoulder, watching Bruce Wayne smile at his son. Remembers birthdays and Christmases spent next to a silent phone. The wind whipping his cheek as he snapped a shot of Batman laughing at something Robin said.]_

 

“Don’t presume to know _anything_ about me,” he snarls, dodging and flicking his staff open.

 

“I know enough,” the man replies, easily blocking the flurry of attacks sent his way. “A little prince, growing up in a castle, the heir to a empire.”

 

[ _The young boy inside him stirs, remembers waking up from nightmares and wandering an empty house, carefully wrapping himself in his father’s coats and trying to memorize the smell. Remembers pouring over textbooks and equations and graphs, so that maybe his mother might smile at him, and they’d stay home for more than a week.]_

 

“Stop,” Tim grunts, as the blade comes into contact with his cheek, the shallow cut dripping blood.

 

“Aww, little Timmy’s got himself hurt? Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” Jason’s grinning as he comes close, _much too close_ , but Tim can’t find it in himself to move.

 

[ _Late nights coming in through the front door (not like anyone’s home to see him), cleaning cuts and bruises he’d gotten from following around the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder. Knowing they would fade by the time his parents’ letter would come, promising ‘_ just another week, Timothy’.]

 

He made another cut, this time on his jawline, and Tim knows, he knows the game the Red Hood’s playing, knows Gotham’s the playing ground, winner takes all. Knows Jason expects him to play by the rules, get beaten up, go home till the next time fate comes calling. 

 

_[Tim is tired. He’s tired of giving everything he has, pretending to be perfect, and trying to be good enough that no one sees through the illusion. He’s done, done playing by the rules, done with his mother’s voice echoing in his ears.]_

 

What he’s doing now could be called lots of things. Crazy. Risky.  Desperate.  But Tim’s always been those things, tried to hide them, to be accepted, but they were always his best traits.  They saved Batman more than once, later from the time-stream, and first, from himself.

 

He reminds himself of this, as pulls a dagger out of his boot, looks the Red Hood in the eye, and presses the edge to his throat. 

 

A smirk graces his bloodied features. “Your move.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> I am open to any (constructive) criticism you may have, and I absolutely adore receiving comments


End file.
